These are all my posts about the Turkish Map Fold, in the order I wrote them. See this link for a summary of instructions on how to make the fold plus several variations and ways to use the fold in a book.
Green Salad’s triple Turkish map-fold structure both conceals and reveals a poem nestled in the lettuce leaves, just as love can both hide and manifest itself in such simple activities as preparing and eating food.
I found this example, and the quote above, of the Turkish Map Fold in The Book as Art, a lovely illustrated volume of artists’ books collected by the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. The book is by Katherine Glover and made of Tyvek.
Most people find my shop in a very mundane way — a typical response to “how did you find me” is “I searched for ‘artist book’ on Etsy.” But last week I got an unexpected and pleasant answer from a woman who bought one of my bookmaking kits. She told me that she had seen a charity auction for The Lunchbox Fund that included a book of images and eight meditations handwritten by Deepak Chopra. She went on to say “I so enjoy origami and this book enchanted me by the way it was constructed. I googled the Turkish map fold and selected the images search. I clicked on one of your photographs and checked out your website.”
Intrigued by the Turkish map fold reference, I looked for the auction, which had just ended. The book went for $820! Here’s the description as well as nice photographs showing the book opening…
Reflecting on the personal journey, each page is folded into a Turkish map and arranged as an accordion which bursts open, blossoming to reveal the colorful text and images within. The covers are embroidered in a floral motif with stem and running stitches in cadmium yellow on Marc Jacobs teal wool cloth and mounted onto Japanese Unry-shi Kozo board. 5” by 5”. Made in collaboration with Alaska L. McFadden. Auction photos by David Belisle.
Do also check out Alaska McFadden’s website and her other books.
Folding the turkish map fold with a non-square piece of paper isn’t as straight-forward as with a square sheet. So for completeness, I’ve put directions for using a rectangular piece of paper here.
As I continue looking at artist’s book on Etsy, I found Australian Joy Serwylo’s Willo Press where she makes miniature books. The one I liked best, given my recent obsession with the Turkish Map Fold, is her maps of the ancient world, below. The book has 6 pages, all with the map fold. See all her miniature books, including a cook book, here.
I’ve used this variation in my last two prompt challenge words. I got the idea from Jeannine, who said she “start(s) with 2 straight folds (horizontal and vertical) and only one diagonal.” Here’s how to fold it — in the fourth step below, reverse the crease on the diagonal fold to get a square that is half the size of the original sheet.
I took 4 folded sheets and glued them to a backing sheet to get this:
Gluing the folded sheets back-to-back, and rotating each sheet 180 degrees as you glue, like the picture on the right, gives you an accordion book that has a wonderful slinky-like action to it. Below is a model I made that I hung up in my studio.
My friend Cathy calls these “Lotus Books,” and she has an example here and more complete instructions in this PDF.
Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord calls them “diamond fold books” and she has more examples on her website.
All my posts on Turkish Map Folds, the variations and examples can be found here.
This week’s word had me searching for poetry about food. I’d been playing around with another Turkish Map Fold variation, suggested by Jeannine’s comment that she “start(s) with 2 straight folds (horizontal and vertical) and only one diagonal.” Starting with a square piece of paper, this fold produces another, smaller square. I glued 4 of them to a backing sheet, and liked the way it opened — see the model below.
I liked that opening up one of the quadrants could reveal a surprise and also that the unfolded structure is very map-like. To go along with this week’s word, I thought I’d put some sort of food on the outside (maybe chocolates?), and the filling would be revealed by opening the folds underneath. So I spent way too much time trying to find a poem about chocolates or candy, and then trying to write one myself (a lost cause!). Then I found this poem from Shel Silverstein’s book Every Thing On It, and knew what to do…
Italian Food
Shel SilversteinOh, how I love Italian food.
I eat it all the time,
Not just ’cause how good it tastes
But ’cause how good it rhymes.
Minestrone, cannelloni,
Macaroni, rigatoni,
Spaghettini, scallopini,
Escarole, braciole,
Insalata, cremolata, manicotti,
Marinara, carbonara,
Shrimp francese, Bolognese,
Ravioli, mostaccioli,
Mozzarella, tagliatelle,
Fried zucchini, rollatini,
Fettuccine, green linguine,
Tortellini, Tetrazzini,
Oops—I think I split my jeani.
Here’s the back and front of the book I made:
Partially opened…
Fully opened….
There was a problem though. When the book is open, turning it over shows that the panels are slightly scrambled. So the content needs more work. Here’s the back…
Next word: flexuous, adj; Full of bends or curves; sinuous.